Hearing Voices
by MoxieChick
Summary: The night before helping the NCR take back Nelson the courier visits Forlorn Hope's graveyard. Rated T for language.


A/N: What's this? An upload? Yeah, finally got one of my other one shots done and ready to publish. Just two more sitting in fic limbo...grrr. This one's a bit darker.

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><p>The group stood and watched the Courier from the overlook of the camp, the NCR troops around them were preparing for the battle ahead in their tents, either sleeping, drinking, praying, writing to love ones, whatever they needed to do to make themselves go into battle with a clear head. The Courier's group had expected the usual round of pre battle drinks from their leader, but since returning from her mission earlier Moxie had spent the day in the mess hall, her only company a bottle. Once evening fell on the camp she'd left and wandered aimlessly before they spotted her walking down the path to the cemetery.<p>

Now Moxie leaned against a large rock as she sat amongst the small wooden crosses. They couldn't make out her face in the dark, but the way her head tilted back to rest against the rock gave the impression that her eyes were closed.

"That's…odd." Arcade rubbed the back of his neck, Gorobets grunted beside him.

"I know a lot of soldiers like to walk and clear their head before a battle, but that's just, well, morbid." The soldier shifted uncomfortably. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and he could see Moxie's head move ever so slightly from time to time. "It's almost like she's…listening to something." He glanced at the Follower.

"As unsettling as that thought might be…I've heard some of the people who've come into The Old Mormon Fort talk, about coming back from the brink of death and, hearing things."

"What? Like ghosts? Do they see them too?" Veronica looked a little too excited as she asked this. She had never seen a ghost, but had always wanted to, just to see what they were like.

"No, just voices…more like whispers, as if the dead were trying to talk to them." Arcade shrugged. "Some of the people had said that those who've been close to death have some odd connection to the other side."

"Would explain why she usually avoids graveyards." Boone mumbled. He'd been traveling with the Courier the longest and was usually the one she took with her for the more serious missions. Mox never shied away from danger, he could attest to that, but she avoided graveyards whenever possible, even if it meant adding on an hour to their journey or taking them dangerously close to an enemy camp.

They'd been forced to spend the night in a small cemetery near boulder city not long after he began following her, the morning after she had dark circles under hers eyes and was in a hell of a mood. Boone wasn't a very talkative person, but he could tell that her silence wasn't a normal one, she didn't speak to him for almost two days after that and the look in her eyes made him wonder more than once if he should part ways with the young woman before he awoke to her leaning over him with a knife. After that she'd made sure they never had to sleep in a cemetery again, and he didn't argue.

"If she can hear the dead then I hope they're telling her something we can fucking use against the Legion tomorrow." Gorobets spit into the dirt and scowled. He gave one final look at the motionless woman before leaving the others to join his squad and prepare. Arcade and Veronica watched him go, but Boone kept his eyes on the Courier.

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><p>Moxie could feel her friends and some of the NCR soldiers watching her, thinking she was pretty sick in the head to be sitting in a cemetery the night before a battle, it probably wasn't helping morale any. She'd done just about all she could to help out around the camp, now they were saying it was time to take back Nelson.<p>

Earlier she'd had Boone cover her as she went to try and help those left to die in the no man's land between the two camps. Moxie had been able to disarm the frag mines by the soldiers but hadn't realized how close to death the men were. The three men had begged for death, all of them missing limbs and slowly bleeding out anyway. She'd pulled out a silenced weapon and turned her back towards Boone, praying he couldn't see her as she held the men's hands one by one and put a bullet through their skulls. The Courier had reported that all the men were already dead by the time she'd gotten to them, and then crawled into a bottle of vodka until she'd left her companions and wandered the camp finding her feet leading her into the graveyard.

"You did what you had to…"

"They were as good as dead anyway."

"Murderer…"

Moxie had first heard the voices in Goodsprings cemetery while gathering brocflower for Sunny. She had finished getting the flowers and was leaning over her intended grave picking up Benny's discarded cigarettes when the first whisper happened. Brushing it off as the wind she went over to another grave and picked up the snow globe sitting there, she shook and smiled to herself when another, louder whisper occurred. After a moment the voices continued, some asking for help, others telling her of the men dragging her to the graveyard, it seemed like she couldn't get down the hill and back to the town fast enough.

"They were dying." Moxie whispered back to the voices blaming her for the deaths of their friends. "I couldn't save them, so I ended their suffering…" Some of the whispers agreed, others still hissed at her that she could have done more, could have saved them if she'd really wanted to.

"I'll avenge them, and you." Suddenly the whispers ceased and the cemetery was as quiet as it should be. "I'll kill every last legionary in Nelson, take it back so you didn't die in vain." She vowed. Everything around her was still. She waited but heard nothing more from the fallen soldiers. Moxie slowly stood and began walking back towards her waiting companions. As she reached the edge of the graveyard a slight breeze picked up from behind, carrying one final message.

"Thank you."


End file.
